


Butterfly Effect

by Leyenn



Category: She-Ra: Princess Of Power
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 10:04:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2808494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it takes something else small to make a big thing happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Butterfly Effect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Robot_Jesus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robot_Jesus/gifts).



There's no fanfare to her arrival in the Whispering Woods: it's just a normal day a few weeks after Prince Kevin leaves, when Adora and Glimmer come back from a trip to Bright Moon with Flutterina in tow, and so Bow rides back into camp that evening to find the three women putting the finishing touches to pitching a brand new tent alongside Glimmer's. 

He almost turns Arrow to go and say hello - but then Flutterina laughs at something, some gentle joke just between the three of them. It's a high, warm sound, full of merriment, and he watches her wings beat faintly with the flutter of her laughter - it makes his face flush hot, and any intelligent greeting completely leave his head.

She's enchanted him, utterly, since the moment he saw her. He dreams about that moment sometimes, except that in his dreams she's not hovering so elegantly beside Swift Wind in the dry air above Sand Valley, her bright and pretty wings framing her against the hot sun. No, in his dreams they're in the Woods, most definitely alone, and the sunlight is softer and those wings are beating a soft breeze against his bare skin...

He knows he's something of a flirt sometimes, he can't help that and wouldn't want to. Life is painful and hard sometimes on Etheria, and sometimes all they have is to make the most of the moment. Glimmer flirts back because she understands that, too, all too well, though it never means anything between them - he's known that for years. It's true, somewhere deep in his heart he'll always carry a small, quiet candle for Adora, because she's strong and fierce and resourceful and beautiful, because she brightens everywhere she goes like a flame - but he's realised, just recently, that that's different. _Everyone_ loves Adora, is slightly in love with Adora, because she's strong, fierce, resourceful, beautiful: because she never stops burning. It's the way everyone is slightly in love with She-Ra, who's all of those things too, but also mysterious and wild and just forever slightly out of reach.

And Flutterina is strong, fierce, resourceful, beautiful, too... was all of those things even before she was Flutterina, he's sure. But she also makes his heart race and his face flush and his head empty of all but the sound of her laugh - things he's never realised until now that Adora has never done. That no one else has ever done.

The leather of her tent is new, stretched neatly over the frame, clean and pale pink. A painted wooden butterfly, delicately carved and threaded with soft yellow wool, fastens the tent flap closed. He fingers it lightly, running a calloused fingertip along the curving edge of a wing.

"Bow?" 

He jumps. Her voice is light and quiet, very close behind him. He turns and her wings, gently twitching as she smiles, beat a soft breeze against his face. 

"Flutterina." He tries to think of all the things he was going to say, all the things he rehearsed over his bowl of hearty stew and bread with the sound of her laughter rolling around his head. Just a simple _Welcome to Whispering Woods_ , or _it's so nice have you here, if there's anything you need_ , or _I'm sorry you have to hide from the Horde here, too_.

"Hi," is all that comes out. "I, uh..."

Someone giggles inside Glimmer's lit tent, only feet away; it sounds like Adora, happy and relaxed, a sound too easy for this strung-tight moment in the cool dusk. His face burns: Flutterina's smile flickers and the moment is suddenly awkward, and he hears himself stutter something unintelligible, some vague excuse, before hurrying away with the definite sensation of her gaze following him across the clearing. 

When he can't sleep that night, lying back in his tent and knowing she's so close, he can still feel the carved wing against his fingers.

Adora giggles again when he tells her about it, a week later, riding back from yet another close shave with some Horde troopers. Spirit whickers and tosses his head, and Bow gets the distinct impression he's being laughed at by a horse.

"Oh, Bow." Adora smiles fondly and shakes her head, but the look she gives him is more shrewd than he expects. "You really do like her a lot, don't you?"

He doesn't really feel like he can lie about it. Not to Adora, anyway. "I really do," he admits, tangling the reins between his fingers, and Adora just smiles knowingly as they ride on in silence. Fall is coming in, and the breeze is cool and feels like butterfly wings.

"You should just tell her, you know," Adora says, after another mile or so.

He blushes, caught off guard, expecting they were done. "I - well, I'm not sure it's that simple, Adora."

Adora reaches forward for something in Spirit's mane and combs her fingers through it. Funny, he can't see anything caught there, and when he glances at her face, he thinks there's a faint touch of colour to her cheeks that wasn't there before.

"Trust me." She looks right at him, and this time there's a definite blush to her face, but it's the light in her eyes that really strikes him. "Sometimes it's just that simple."

It turns into a warm evening: there's been a good hunt and the village they spent the morning saving were grateful enough to share some of their bumper crop with their rescuers, so the camp is raucous with good cheer - after all, even a small victory for one village is another village free of the Horde, and that's always something to celebrate. There's a tall campfire, a whole spit-roasted pig, vegetables cooked to Madame's secret recipe; brown bread and thick slices of cheese; sharp, sweet mead; cold cream and fresh fruits. Someone strums idly on a lute while the spit turns and by the time it's carved there's fast music, tapping feet and a dozen bodies dancing. Even when Flutterina sits down at the table beside him, the mood all around is so bright that he almost doesn't remember to be nervous - almost.

Almost, and then he sees Adora. Dancing, smiling, fierce and beautiful and burning but this time - for the first time he's ever seen - pulling Glimmer against her, holding her close, their fingers tangling and Glimmer smiling, too, as they sway into the music together. 

It's as if his open eyes open all over again. He should be surprised, perhaps, not to have seen it happening; upset, perhaps, that they didn't tell him; disappointed, perhaps, to have lost his chance with Adora. But he can only think of how happy she is, how happy they are, the look on her face as she brushed Spirit's mane and the light in her eyes when she said, _it's just that simple_. 

"Flutterina," he says, suddenly because he won't let himself think about this and get it wrong again. For the first time he's all there, it's all clear, and then it only gets clearer when she smiles and he knows he's right because there, just _there_ , he can see that light in her eyes too.

"Yes?"

And just as suddenly he knows why he couldn't find the right thing to say, and this time it's not awkward; it's easy, so very easy. 

Her mouth is soft, and warm, and she tastes of the sharp mead in her mug, the peaches and cream in her half-eaten bowl, but she kisses him like she's forgotten all about them. Her fingers are warm, too, and light as they come to rest, just the faintest of fingertips, against his chest. Her wings beat and he feels it on his skin, and hears the one thing that was never even in his dreams: the sound of her wings beating as she winds her arms around his neck, and it sounds just like a heartbeat.

**


End file.
